President Obama said Tuesday that despite Republican vows to block him, he will nominate a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly on Saturday.
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He cited as precedent the Democratic-controlled Senate’s confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, during the 1988 election year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he doesn’t think Obama should be putting a candidate forward.
He added, “I am amazed at how upset people” are about Republican calls to not consider any Obama nominee. “And I wish the president well as he makes choices and goes down that line – it’s hard”.
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said Obama’s comments are “certainly no surprise”, given the president’s history of nominations for federal courts over the past seven years. “This has become just one more extension of politics”.
Earnest gave no explanation as to why the president and first lady would not attend Scalia’s funeral, saying only that the Obamas would pay their respects when Scalia’s body lies in repose at the high court. But I don’t think the American people want a court that will strip our religious liberties.
At CNN’s Republican presidential town hall in South Carolina, Florida Sen. Susan Collins of ME, a Republican who isn’t up for re-election this year, in a statement to Politico criticized both parties for “speculating so soon” on a successor and said any nominee would “warrant in-depth consideration”.
His replacement, whoever Obama nominates, could tip the ideological balance on the court, since Scalia was often the most vocal justice in the court’s five-member conservative majority that held the upper hand in numerous 5-to-4 decisions over four reliably liberal justices.
The Constitution is clear about what happens now, said Mr Obama, and now would be a good time to rise above Washington “rancour” and “venom”.
Republican frontrunners Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all agreed that the next president should nominate Scalia’s replacement, not Obama. Senator Bernie Sanders believes Obama should act “as soon as possible” to replace Scalia.
“At the end of the day, President Obama is the answer to his own question, you know when he says, ‘what is the Senate going to do?'” Turley said.
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Americans are sick and exhausted of Congress not doing the job we elected them to do. Sen.
